The Words for Love
by RoboticRainboots
Summary: An introspection into the love of Edward Elric and three of his most important relationships throughout his lifetime.
1. Agape

_**Agape**_

_Summer 1904_

The green hills of Resembool are exceptionally quiet on this morning until a clap breaks through the silence.

It's a resounding clap, echoing over each and every wavy crest of hill until the wind carries it away. It's like a baby's first laugh, a kitten's first stumbled steps; a mother's first smile since the pain of childbirth, when she holds her newborn in her arms for the first time and it opens its eyes revealing the entirety of the blue sky captured in two tiny disks. This clap is a significant first, one that is bound to change the course of every breath exhaled after it is clapped.

Edward Elric leans forward, grabbing the prize at the center of the circle. He spent all morning drawing and redrawing that white, chalk circle. His little, pudgy hands of five weren't quite skilled enough to draw perfect circles with pristine, geometric lines zigzagging through. And every time he _did_ manage to draw it perfectly, he always smudged it with his other hand at the very last minute.

Ed called Alphonse out to come and watch him perform the trick right before he did it. He hadn't wanted Al to see him struggle with drawing the circle, but he wanted his little brother to be there to witness his first attempt at alchemy.

He and Al had spent the better part of the past week trading the copy of _The Beginner's Guide to Alchemy_/i they had found in their father's study between the two of them, taking turns reading the chapters. Ed had been the first to finish reading it though, and so Ed would be the first to transmute.

The creation Ed now holds in his hand is small, no larger than his hand itself.

Ed marvels at it in wonder only the way a child can, turning it around gently and inspecting it from all angles as delicately as he can, almost afraid that if he's too rough with it then it will shatter like glass despite its composition of tin.

"Look, Al, I made a horse!" Ed exclaims to his little brother a moment later, almost forgetting he's there as he became so enraptured in the little metal creature.

Al makes a face at that. He's as equally impressed with the creation as Ed is, though he hadn't realized it was supposed to be a horse.

Its metal legs are as thin as matchsticks as it stands weakly in Ed's hand. Its two ears stick up from its head at wildly different lengths and its nose looks more like a button than a proper horse snout. He wouldn't have known it was a horse at all if Ed hadn't told him that it was.

"Come on," Ed says, standing up not taking his eyes off his precious figurine. "Let's go show Mom."

They march into the house, their little legs covered in the dirt they sat in, and find Mom standing in the kitchen over the sink.

She has her back turned towards them as she stands there peering endlessly out the window, watching the trail that leads back from their house on the hill to the main road. Her lilac colored dress stirs around her calves from the breeze that pours into the house from the open back door, making it twirl like she's caught in an endless dance.

"Mom?" Ed whispers behind her, not wanting to scare her.

She turns to face them, her brown hair falling around her face. For a moment she looks so sad, almost as if she's about to cry like she's fallen by the river and scraped her knee on one of the rocks like Al did last week. Still, the melancholy expression only flashes on her face for a moment before it morphs into something cheerier.

Ed's always had such a hard time understanding complex emotions. He doesn't like it when the other kids at school cry, when Winry makes a fuss when he accidentally breaks the arm off one of her favorite dolls. But even then, longing and desperation are hard emotions for any five-year-old to comprehend. So while Ed may not understand the expression his mother wares or the reason for the way her smile seems slightly forced, he does recognize that she's sad, and all he knows is that he doesn't want her to be that way. Ed wants his mother to be happy.

At that moment he makes a split-second decision.

"I have something for you," he says, holding the little metal horse behind his back.

Al makes a small noise beside him, clearly confused that Ed would give the horse to Mom, but he doesn't say anything.

Ed pulls the figurine out and presents it to her with a grand flourish, smiling with all his might as he does.

He watches as Mom takes the creation from his hands, spinning it around in her fingers and inspecting it.

"It's lovely, little man," she says finally, returning it back to its home in his hands and patting him on the head, ruffling his bangs as she does. "Did you make this with alchemy?"

"Yeah! Al and I read about how to do it from a book we found in the study."

She nods, clearly impressed. "You two are so smart! And skilled at alchemy too, just like your father." She smiles as she says it, a real smile. It's so much brighter than the one she puts on so they won't notice her looking so down.

Ed decides not to gripe at the comment despite his deep distaste for his father. He knows it would only make Mom more upset and he only wants to see her happy.

"I want you to have it," he says, pushing it forward again.

"I couldn't take this from you, Ed. It's your first creation with alchemy, I couldn't possibly steal it away from you."

"No, Mom. I made it for you," and he reaches up and places the toy pony in her outstretched hands.

If the smile she gave them when she realized it was made with alchemy was genuine, then he wants her to keep the horse. It always made Winry happy when he would bring her new toys to play with, so maybe the little horse will make Mom happy too.

Kneeling down on the ground, Trisha Elric pulls Ed into a hug, reaching out and pulling Al into it too, who had been standing there beside his brother throughout the entire exchange.

There isn't a place in the world that Ed feel safer than when he is tucked in his mother's arms. His face is pressed up against her shoulder, her thin arm wrapped around his back.

There's a deep-seated feeling of love for her in his chest, one that's always been abundant within him, but overflows whenever she pulls him into her arms. It's not just the heat of her body pressed against him that keeps him feeling so warm and safe, but it's the flow of unadulterated, pure love that abides within him that feels as natural to him as breathing that makes him feel so invincible.

That night Trisha places the little horse on her bedside table, right beside a gold framed picture of a (mostly) smiling family of four. The little figurine, with all its flaws and faults and imperfections, stays there for many years, Trisha always insisting the little horse always had a home there despite her children moving onto transmuting bigger and better things.

.oOo.

The late summer storms start to come through. July brings a torrent of rain and mist and fury. Days and days of gray, the sunlight hiding out for so long they almost forget its warmth. It isn't always bad though, if they do manage to forget the way the heat of the sun kisses their skin, then they have their mother there to remind them of it.

It's two weeks into July when the worst of it comes. Thrashing rain pelting the window like bullets and explosions of thunder curse the sky. Lightning breaks the moon into splintering pieces and bathes the murderous clouds in shadows. It's exactly what Ed imagines a warzone would look and sound like if he was ever unfortunate enough to visit one.

It isn't the claps of lightning like a transmutation in the sky that wakes Ed that summer night, but rather a little hand on his arm and a weak voice in his ear.

"Brother," the voice sniffles, calling Ed out of his slumber.

Ed rolls over, facing the wall and turning his back to the voice.

"Brother," the voice pleads again, shaking his arm in its desperation. "Wake up, Brother."

Finally, with slow movements like his joints are clogged up with sleep, Ed sits up and faces his brother who sits kneeled at the edge of his bed.

"Al," Ed says, rubbing furiously at his fatigue-glued eyes, "what's wrong?"

Al sniffles again. "Brother, I'm scared and I can't fall back asleep."

"What's there to be afraid of—" Ed starts to ask, but the thunder roars, drowning out his voice and causing the foundation of their home to tremble with its vibrations.

Oh.

"Here," he says, laying down again and pulling back the covers, "come lay down with me."

They stay like that for a couple of minutes, but Ed knows Al lays there beside him with his eyes wide open. The room is dark, not even the light of the full moon shines in, but the air is heavy with the sound of their twin breaths and the rain pattering against the roof.

Lightning flashes again and Ed doesn't even have the time to count out a single second before the thunder booms and Al cries out in fear.

They're right in it, they're so close to the center of the storm.

Al pulls his arm closer as the next two bouts of thunder come, digging his nails into Ed's flesh until Ed can't take it anymore.

"Let's go see if Mom will let us sleep in her bed," Ed finally decides.

"Are you scared too?" Al asks, and though Ed knows Al's intent is not to mock him, he still scoffs at the question and tells Al he isn't a little kid, that he doesn't get scared of stupid things like storms.

He _is_ five after all.

They walk side by side down the hall, tiptoeing to their mother's room as quietly as possible despite there being no one they need to be quiet for.

They wake Mom up and she pulls the covers back and allows her children to lay curled against each of her sides without hesitation. When they're all nestled in close, she brushes the hair out of their faces with her hands and begins to sing.

The notes pour out of her slowly at first, like a tipped jar of honey with the fluid oozing at a snail's pace, but when she finds the words she is looking for, they come quicker and more confidently, like she was made to sing this song.

She has the miraculous power to drown out the clatters of the storm with her song and fill the room with an internal glow.

This, Edward decides, is where he feels safest. The storm could bring down their roof, it could let the water pound onto his face and run off his skin like tears, but tucked here by Mom he wouldn't feel afraid at all.

Love casts its own shield of protection.

Because this is love without commitment, love without flaw. It's unbridled and undying. It's eternal and good and warm. It isn't a love he's had to earn, but rather it was given to him by their mother without hesitation or restraint.

Agape is a song sung to children despite the storm, warm words and even warmer hearts. It's like the light of the sun is being cast directly in its honor.

So that night Ed calls sleep warm and happy and feeling fuzzy inside. There isn't a place in the world he would rather be than here.

.oOo.

Ed starts transmuting his mother other things when she starts to look down. He knows he can't buy her love, that he won it the day he was born, but whenever that melancholy look washes over her, he transmutes her wreaths of flowers woven intricately into little-braided strands.

All of his and Al's little alchemic feats always make her so happy. She smiles brightest when they present her with a new skill they have mastered. She always pulls her boys into her arms and peppers their cheeks with little kisses until they wriggle out of her grasps all blushes and complaints.

He brings her brass rings, shiny tiaras made of scraps from tin cans. Anything he thinks she'll enjoy.

His efforts are always worth it, it's always like parting the gray skies to let the sun in when she smiles and thanks him for his little trinkets. He never once gets angered when she tells him he and Al take so strongly after their father despite the feeling of wrong it leaves buried in his stomach. The remark always makes her so happy so he'll ignore it for now and kick his good-for-nothing-father's ass some other time for being the one to hurt Mom in the first place.

For a long time the world is perfect. The three of them and the summer skies and the wind making the wildflowers dance when it blows down the hills.

.oOo.

Finally, when Ed starts to think he must have it all figured out, life starts to fall apart.

Their mother starts to die. She withers away before them and suddenly the summer doesn't seem to feel as warm as it used to. She's like a flower, willowing and wilting and turning to dust right before his eyes.

He won't cry, he can't cry. He can't let his mother worry about him when she doesn't have much time left to worry about _herself_. Ed won't let her spend that time unhappy.

He can't cry for Al's sake either. When Mom passes they will only have each other, and as the eldest Ed will have to do everything in his power to take care of his brother. He can't let Al see him so weak when he needs someone there to be strong for him.

So both brothers take the news in different ways. There are several nights a week when Al wakes up crying in his sleep. Ed knows he tries to be quiet when he does, but it always wakes him up anyway. It's like his older brother instincts have gone haywire. They've certainly heightened since the news broke.

Every time it happens, Ed climbs out of his own bed and crawls into Al's, stroking his short, gold hair the same way Mom always does and singing the parts of the lyrics of her song to him that he's certain he knows the words to. Ed knows it doesn't have the same effect when it comes from him, that it doesn't catch Al spellbound and turn his worries to dream dust, but it calms him somewhat and that's the best Ed can hope for.

Neither of them ever speak of the unspoken, they never touch upon the shadow that stalks behind them like a hunter, soon to catch up on them and take them for its pleasing. It's almost like if they say it out loud, if one of them so much as thinks _Mom is dying_, then their future will be cemented in platinum and their imminent destiny will be set.

So everything is done in hushed tones and sideways glances and touches that only ghost their fingertips.

They have to hang onto hope, though hope died long ago.

Still, hope may be dead, but letting it go completely would be so much worse.

.oOo.

The final storm of the summer is coming, Ed can feel it in his bones.

It's like an old ache that just won't go away. It's an injury he sustained long ago that flares up every time the clouds begin to roll in.

The storm builds for three days before the rain begins. By the time the precipitation starts to fall the clouds already resemble smoke from a massive fire. They're heavy and dark and they make the entire town miserably humid.

The rain starts in the evening; the drops are heavy and they fall clattering like a giant child sprinkling pebbles onto the ground. By the time the sun sets, the wind has really picked up and the rain comes mercilessly, soaking every surface for miles.

There's the thunder and lightning too.

And not for the first time, both Ed and Al lay in their beds, both aware the other is awake but saying nothing.

Silences used to be so nice between them, but they're both now filled with an insufferable tension. Ed feels like he's drowning in it. It isn't like they're at odds with each other right now, everything between them is just fine, but every molecule in the room has been soaked up by the unspoken and left tainted. They can't say what's on the tip of their tongues so they lay silently instead.

When the lightning breaks through the clouds, it paints Al's face in silver and gold. It highlights the tears that run silently from his eyes and down his cheeks. It glistens on them like glass, cutting and jarring.

There was a time when Ed would have made fun of Al for such a thing. He would have mocked Al for crying so much more than he ever did, called him a little baby. That time, however, has passed. Al always felt everything so much more deeply than he did, not just the bad things, but the good things too. Ed wishes he could have that kind of unharrowed heart.

It's moments like these when Ed sorts through every single memory he has of the five years he's had to his life and inspects them each like a skeptic looking through a magician's set of trick cards. He's searching for an answer, a clue on how to get through all of this.

It's times like these when he's desperate enough to start praying to a god he's never believed in.

Not every mystery has a scientific cure. Science can do a billion and one miraculous things, but it can't do anything when it _actually matters._ Science is worthless, no cure researched that would heal his mother of her illness. They're going to need some divine intervention now.

He wants to feel safe again, but there's no haven he can flee to.

Unless—

"Brother," a voice calls. Ed knows it's only a whisper, but it shatters the glass wall they've built between them the same way a shout would.

"Brother, I'm scared."

And the situation so perfectly mirrors a similar one, not even a month previously. The same exact rendering, a summer storm, a confession of fear, but there wasn't this same pit in Ed's stomach the first time when they played this little game.

"I'm scared too," Ed finally admits when he can't find anything else to say. It's a humiliating confession, but it falls from his lips without thought.

"Brother, what are we supposed to— what happens when Mom—"

Thunder booms, a sparrow calls, the branches of the giant oak rap against the window pane and Al doesn't finish his sentence. He doesn't need to, Ed already knows what Al's going to say and he thinks if he hears the words out loud then he'll sink straight through the bedroom floor and down into his grave.

Without thinking, Ed stands and walks over to his brother's bed and grabs Al's hand. Confusion mars his face but Al stays silent until Ed pulls him to his feet beside him.

"What are you doing?" he questions, but Ed doesn't answer.

Instead Ed just looks away, peering out the window and watching as the lightning strikes a patch of grass not too far from here.

God, he's so selfish. So fucking selfish, but he can't do this anymore. He can't live with all this unbreathable air and these walls that feel like they're closing in around him.

They can't sleep through this summer storm. They can't pretend it doesn't rain outside their window. This is the pinnacle of everything that's been building up for the past few weeks, this is the cliff's slippery edge.

He has to be with Mom, he has to feel her hold him like he's an infant just once more. He doesn't know if he'll be able to go on not feeling the warmth of her arms around his shoulders at least once more.

So while he's doing this for Al in part, Ed is mainly doing this for himself. He's going to wake Mom and ask her to hold them together when they can't begin to do it themselves. It's selfish because she needs her rest more than anything, it keeps her stronger, healthier. It keeps her _alive,_ but Ed knows that's only a fool's dream.

Ed had given up hope of her coming out of this alive long ago.

In the end, rest won't stall the swing of the scythe.

Ed keeps his finger laced in Al's as he guides them down the hall. He gropes the wall with his unoccupied hand, trying not to stumble in the darkness, but he's had this path memorized since the day he learned to walk.

Mom's door groans on its hinges, letting out a high-pitched wail that makes both boys flinch.

Her body on the bed looks like a corpse. Even in the limited lighting he can see the gray pallor of her skin, the way her arms lay limp on the blanket like she's laying there dead in an open casket and not simply sleeping in her bed.

If he wasn't already breathless, Ed knows he would have lost it now.

He simultaneously wants to turn away to run away from here and go over to her and lay down beside her at the same time. His little legs want to take him out the backdoor and flee down the side of the hill, to never stop running until he passes out from exhaustion.

He feels Al's little fingers clenched around his wrist tremble and it snaps Ed back into the present. He's here because Al's scared of the storm, even if that's only what he's telling himself.

"Mama?" Al whispers, gently shaking her arm.

They never call her 'Mama', only ever 'Mom'. Al must be really scared to call her that now.

Mom doesn't stir.

"Mama?" Al says again, his voice taking a higher pitch of desperation. Something isn't right.

_No— she can't be—_

"Mama!" Al cries a third time, starting to sob all over again. He won't stop trembling and his hands go on, furiously rocking her trying to get her to move, to do anything.

Al turns back to Ed, his eyes as wide as moons, full with absolute terror.

And for a long moment neither of them move, completely shell shocked, staring at each other as their minds go white.

_No! This can't be!_

Ed feels like the room is spinning. His vision is going back, every image distorted in front of his. Sirens blare emergency in his mind.

"Van?" a barely audible voice croaks, and Mom outstretches one of her skeletal hand to Al and barely brushes his elbow.

The younger boy sobs in relief, turning back to Mom.

"Al," she tries again, slowly coming out of the fog of sleep. "What's wrong?"

"The storm," he sobs so shaken, and Ed realizes he's almost completely forgotten about the storm himself. He bets Al has too. "Can we sleep here tonight?"

She nods and barely has enough strength in her papery arms to pull back the thick comforter piled on the bed, so Al pushes it out of the way for her and climbs in.

It's like lying in the grave beside her corpse and waiting for the gravedigger to bury him alive.

Ed goes around to the other side of the bed to sleep on her right, not missing the mesmerizing way the flashes of lightning illuminate the little horse that still sits perched on the nightstand. When he gets up close to her, she spreads out her right arm and wraps it around his back, cradling him close to her like a newborn.

Without them asking, she begins to sing.

It's a poor imitation of her song, like someone has taken a beautiful music box and smashed it so where every note it plays is off in its pitch and some don't even play at all. Her voice is scratchy and busted. Every word she sings is feebler than the last until eventually they fade out into a record scratch of nothingness.

Still, Ed doesn't find the song ugly, instead there's something utterly beautiful about it. It's like a siren call. It has clogged up all the gears in his mind and made him deaf to everything but its sound.

The rain and the thunder play along as her percussionists.

Her every word speaks of ephemerality, they say this life is fading, that nothing can last forever. Not a song, not a mother, not a love.

Her voice fades out with the final lines of the song, and for a moment everything is quiet, even the sound of the rain has faded like her magic song has cleared it all away just for them. Only the sound of Al's even breathing permeates the silence.

"Edward?" she whispers not to wake Al.

"Yes, Mom?"

She runs the pad of her thumb just under his eye. He didn't even realize he was crying until she brushes the tears away.

"When I'm gone—"

"Mom don't say that!"

"Listen to me, Ed," she starts again, and he listens. "Both you boys have been so strong. The two of you are more incredible than I realized anyone could be. I don't have much time left here, and when I go I need you to take care of your brother. The two of you will only have each other left until your father comes back, so you two have to be even stronger for each other. Do you understand?"

Ed wants to grumble that their good for nothing father will never return, but he knows now's not the time, so he simply nods. There's so much more he wants to say, but he can't, and so a nod will just have to do.

"Good," and she pulls him even closer, his head resting on her chest and he hears her rapidly beating heart jailed in her chest trying to jump free.

Pulled so close he can smell her scent of soft lavender soaps and he clings to her like a baby.

_Because fuck. How is he supposed to do this when she's gone? How is he supposed to be okay?_

He's spent so long bricking up his heart. Every waking moment, every sleeping hour he's dedicated to making it impenetrable. He can't let anything in, he can't let the world break him. If he starts to feel too much then the crash will just hurt that much more.

Perhaps it started with Hohenheim leaving. It must have, there was no incident prior to it that was ever any cause for alarm. Ed will never admit it, he'll go to his grave kicking and screaming before he ever admits that his father's departure felt like a kick to a stomach. He will never tell another living soul, not Al and not Mom, that that wounded him, that it made him feel like he wasn't good enough and that's why Hohenheim left. He won't even admit it to himself.

He used to wear his little heart on his sleeve, the same way Al does now. He felt every beat of his little, fragile heart, he felt every emotion pulse through him. But if he does that now then he'll feel every letdown alongside every joy. Life comes at such an awful price.

So he's been building up his defenses, been lining his heart in harsh steel so that nothing can ever get in. He's readied the cannons, sharpened his swords, he's fully prepared for an all-out attack.

But so long spent building up the walls to his heart and down they fall in an instant, the bricks of his fortress heart crashing down and sending the dust they land in up like smoke. It takes so little to penetrate his impenetrable heart.

A mother's broken song in his ears, her brittle arms like hollow bird wings wrapped around his back as he cries in her arms.

He can spend any number of infinities building up the defenses of his heart. He can spend lifetimes making sure he can never be broken, but it's all so useless when those walls take less than a single second to destroy.

Love, pure unhesitated love, always finds the holes in a heart's defenses and worms its way in. The same love he's about to lose.

And so how the hell is he supposed to do this without her? Her love is everything to him, it's his every joy and every breath. It's what fills this home with warmth in the winter and lights the fire of the hearth in the nights. It's what makes this place so much more than a resting place, but a monument to everything the three of them, him, Mom, and Al, share. If home really is where the heart is, then he's found his home in her. He's planted his seeds in her heart and she's let them bloom there. He isn't strong enough to lose the most important love he's ever known.

And so he lets out a sob, it's as choked and mangled as the song his mother just sang, but he can't find it in himself to care. Not when he's so fucking close to the edge of losing everything. He's spent so long telling himself he wouldn't be a baby, he wouldn't cry. He has to be strong for Al, for Mom.

He feels worthless losing control right in front of her, but he can't stop now. The cries keep coming, each more choked and painful than the last. It's so guttural, so primal and raw, but once he's started he can't seem to shut the tears off.

His throat burns and he swears he can taste the lining of his heart on his tongue.

It's so overwhelming now, to lose it all in an instant. He lays here wrapped in her arms, mourning a mother that he hasn't yet lost. He's so goddamn selfish.

They lay there like that for a long time, Mom rubbing circles into his back and whispering calm words into his ears. Ed is grateful she doesn't ask what's wrong, he isn't sure he could stand that kind of humiliation, but he also is certain she must already know.

Eventually she pulls him back, his head resting on her chest as they lay back onto her pillows. She's so sick and so weak but her skin is still warm as ever. Alphonse sleeps wrapped in her other arm, softly breathing and Ed thanks his lucky star that Al isn't also awake to see him fall apart.

He can't let that happen.

When Mom is gone he'll have to be strong, strong for Al who won't have anything but a pathetic excuse of a brother who's sobbing out his heart like a baby right now.

He falls asleep crying. He doesn't remember closing his eyes, doesn't remember the letting sleep take him.

When the morning comes, the sun washes over them, pale and cold.

And in the morning it is hands that wake him, hands that are firmer than his mother's. Ed opens his eyes to the faces of Sara and Urey Rockbell looking down upon him as they pull him out of his mother's cold grasp kicking and screaming.

They tell him she's dead, passed in her sleep clinging not onto life, but onto her two children.

* * *

**A/N: This piece is a total of three chapters. I will upload the next two on March 8th and March 22nd. Thank you so much for reading!**


	2. Philia

_**Philia**_

_Autumn 1910_

The autumn comes in crisp and cunning, cutting through the humidity of the summer like a knife. It eats what's left of the summer it alive, swallowing all leftover entrails of heat and warmth that might have been left until the days are as cold as deep winter might be.

The moon outside of the bedroom window is but a sliver. It's the last slice of light before the entire sky goes dark in the coming nights and the stars take up their full residency.

None of this is on the mind of Edward Elric, however, as he lays in his bed trying to make himself as small as possible. His right leg is curled up to his chest and held secure with his remaining left arm. He wishes that perhaps if he could just make himself small and compact enough, then the white, linen sheets of the bed would swallow him up whole and he would sink into another dimension far from here.

A man came by today. It was the first time in a month that Ed had seen another face that wasn't Granny's or Winry's (and perhaps Al's too, though what was left of him didn't exactly count much for a face.) The man introduced himself as Lieutenant Colonel Roy Mustang and claimed he had ended up here on an accidental lead searching for two master alchemists, Edward and Alphonse Elric. It was clear by the look on his face that this wasn't a rabbit hole he had meant to fall into.

The Lieutenant Colonel was shadowed by a woman, also an officer, but Ed had missed her name. Not that it mattered, he didn't care for either of them the minute the man pushed open the door and barged in without any regard for Granny.

Ed wondered what the Lieutenant Colonel had hoped to find when he sought them out at the Rockbell home. He had clearly seen the monster that lurked it the Elrics' basement, horror still painted his expression and dust and dried blood caked his heavy military boots. He knew what he was getting himself into when he chose to peruse the boys further after finding an abandoned home full of wretched, bloodied things.

There had been yelling when he had seen the state of Ed. He had wrenched Ed up in front of him by the fabric of his oversized shirt and yelled in his face. Fury flooded the Rockbell residence in the form of Roy Mustang.

But Ed had let the apprehension grow on the man's face. He wasn't going to deny the man's accusations that he'd done something horrible, that he'd fucked up, that he would be punished for his sins.

If the government wants to lock him up, then so be it.

Mustang only let Ed go on the account of Al, who startled him so much that he nearly dropped Ed to the floor. Al had stood there wavering on his metal feet like a flag in the wind and told the Lieutenant Colonel to let Ed go. He voice was weak, broken, and still sounding like that of a child, but his fearsome appearance more than made up for the intimidation factor.

Whatever Mustang had been expecting of the younger Elric, it wasn't _this._

At some point, someone had realized pointless yelling was going to get them nowhere. Mustang could yell until he was blue in the face and it wouldn't elicit so much as a twitch from Edward Elric. He would remain as still as a stone, as silent as a statue.

So the proposition was made, the deal offered, and the cover story drawn up.

Granny pushed Ed's wheelchair up to the table and set a cup of tea in front of him. Ed didn't touch it and it grew colder and colder with each tick of the cuckoo clock.

Mustang spoke while Ed watched on with glazed eyes. He never responded, never reacted. Everything drifted past him without care. Sentences few over him, only a few words getting snagged by his brain. The words "automail" and "military" and "State Alchemist" and "research".

It didn't matter what he was saying word for word, Ed knew exactly what he was being asked to do.

The man and his lieutenant left without forcing him to give them an answer. He left an envelope with Granny to give to Ed in case he wanted to contact him. When Granny had shut the door behind the military pair, she threw envelope on the table and scowled.

Ed said nothing, sitting there like a broken marionette and letting Al push his wheelchair back to his room.

_._**oOo.**

Ed slowly flips over in his bed and faces where Al sits when he can no longer bear it. There's an itching inside of him, a crawling in his own skin. There's a voice inside him that cries out to him and tells him to run. Not run like a coward, so afraid and weak and wanting to flee, but to run on two legs so he can feel his body do _something.___He's forgotten what it feels like to know his heart is running free in his chest.__His legs—or leg rather—feel tethered to the bed, there are weights strapped to his limb and his arm is tied above his head to one of the wooden posts.

God, he has to get out of here.

But all his restless anguish is kept locked somewhere deep inside of him. He doesn't move, he doesn't squirm despite the inferno that rages inside his chest telling him to.

Al sits in the corner shrouded in shadow. Not even the light from the stars and the waning moon reaches him there. The armor has its knees pulled up to its chest, making itself look small and childish in a connotative sense. In a denotative one, it still looks as large as ever, much larger than Ed feels now, made so small in his bed.

Not for the first time since the transmutation, Ed wonders what his little brother is thinking. What he must be feeling—if anything—since all of this has come to be. Ed knows what it's like to have his appendages ripped from his body, but he has no concept of what it's like to have his very life ripped out of him and then brought back again only to be cast into some Hell made up of a metal coffin.

Al has his helmet resting face down on his folded-up arms, and for a minute Ed can pretend he is sitting there sleeping.

_If only._

And something about that pathetic image of his brother, the one of him sitting between the dresser and the wall like some forgotten luggage trying to call himself into a sense of sleep, makes every bit of feeling well up inside of Ed. It's an ebbing thing and it quiets the burning sensation to _move,_ only to replace it with something worse.

Ed's always categorized feelings in three different ways. He's always had trouble with expressing how he feels, so he's made a system to quantify it to help make sense of it all. There are feelings that are yellow, feelings that are surface level and short lived. They're like a bruise on the knee, they're just little flashes of happiness, flashes of hurt that leave no lingering behind.

There are feeling that are red. They're hot to the touch, and they well up in him all at once in fiery bursts of _something.___They remind him of a bleeding cut, one that stings and burns, but heals within the week. Red is to be overjoyed, to be angry with the wrath of a dust storm in the summer desert. They stir up trouble and eat away at the shrubbery, but in the end every red emotion burns itself out until it's nothing more than a simmering sliver of nothing.

And then there is blue. Blue is so much harder to put into words, and they only way Ed can begin to think to describe it is _heavy._ It weighs down a heart and leaves scar tissue tangled around the aorta. It's a happiness that comes with a price, one that empties him out and leaves echoes reverberating in his throat. It's a hurt that doesn't go away, it jabs into his spine when he bends over to tie his shoe.

So everything he is feeling now is so much bluer than anything he's felt before. It's been a full month since everything went so fucking wrong and he can still feel it all like it was yesterday. Every single thing he has felt between now and the transmutation sits like rocks in his stomach. It's overwhelming.

The scene before him hurts. It hurts to see that his brother is the one _hurting,___but refuses to acknowledge it. Al cannot _feel _ for fuck's sake.

Ed doesn't understand why it was Al who got the short end of the stick. It was _Ed _who insisted they try to bring Mom back, it was _Ed___who pushed and pushed for it despite Al's hesitation. All of this is _Ed's_ sin, yet _Al _was the one who took the fall.

Ed feels the tears well up in his eyes, but he won't let them spill over. He can't now. He can't wallow in his own self-pity or feel bad for what he did. He knows he's selfish, but even pitying himself for a moment would be too much, not when Al's suffering is so much greater than his. He won't cry when Al can't.

Ed must have unconsciously made some kind of noise as he tried to stifle his tears, for the next thing he knows, Al no longer has his helmet buried in his arms, but is rather sitting there and staring directly at him.

"Brother?" Al whispers in a voice so small that doesn't match up with his hulking appearance.

Instead of answering, Ed adverts his gaze. If he opens his mouth then he fears everything he's trying to keep tucked away will spill out of him like a broken tap set to full blast. If he starts, he'll never be able to shut it off.

Something like longing creeps up within him. It reminds him of the days after his mother's death when he wanted nothing more than to be held. It was an infantile wish, but it was simple and vulnerable and raw. Still, in those days Ed had to bury that desire within himself and move on. If there was no one there to hold him, fine, but he wouldn't let Al suffer the same fate as him, and so he devoted that longing to be held into holding his little brother himself so that Al would not have to feel the same emptiness Ed did.

So that's just what he'll have to do now. He's going to have to put all of this suffering and longing and desperation behind him so he can help Al who has it so much worse than he does.

For the first time, Ed wonders at what point Al became the most important person in his life. At what point did Al hang his chrysalis in his heart without letting it fall down? Ed was so certain that he was somehow irrevocably broken inside after Mom died. That he could never love again, not after the loss of Mom had shattered that ability, but he had been mistaken. Love wasn't a quick strike to the heart, it didn't race into him with lightning fast reflexes, instead it was a slow creep. It is slowly, through days and weeks and months and years that love finds a home in a heart.

Was it after Mom died that Al became his most important person? Was it on Yock Island when Al had finally taken up his residency inside him when they had nothing but each other and the ants that crawled the sandy beach floor?

Or perhaps it was when the purple lightning of _wrong _burned around them and he watched Al's clothes fall to the ground like they had never been filled in the first place. Perhaps it was the clawing realization that this was it, without Al Ed was completely and utterly alone in this world with no one left to care what happened to him. Without Al he was destine to bleed out on the basement floor, with Granny and Winry to stumble in on his rotting corpse a week later. It was clearly that same love and desperation that drove Ed to the point of screaming that he was willing to give up anything, _anything _so long as it meant Al could have another chance at life. Be it an arm, a leg, a head, a heart. Anything would suffice.

There'll be no kingdom come today.

So the question came down to what Ed would do about all of this. He had pulled Al back from the edge and tethered him to the earth, but that was not enough. He couldn't go on watching his brother living this half-life and pretending all was well for his sake. He might have been crippled, but he wasn't deaf and he wasn't blind; he knew the way Al sat in the corner at night, curled into a shaking, little ball and making the closest imitations to sobs that he could to try and find some solace in all of this when he thought Ed had finally fallen asleep. This isn't what he deserved.

The words of the Lieutenant Colonel came back to him.

"_If you join the State Alchemists, assuming you pass the exam, you would have complete access to all alchemy research across the nation. Perhaps then you could find a way to get yours and your brother's bodies back."_

The Colonel Lieutenant phrased it like it was an offer, like Ed could decline anytime if he so chose to, but Ed had a sinking feeling the man full-heartedly believed Ed would follow him to the capital soon after.

Ed is pretty sure he made up his mind the minute he saw the Lieutenant Colonel's boots step over the barrier and into the house. It wasn't a question of whether he would or not, the commitment was already set in stone the minute the proposition was made. Ed will take the exam, pass it with flying colors, become a State Alchemist, and then he will chase every lead to every far corner of Amestris if it brings him even an inch closer to getting Al his body back.

He owes Al at least that much.

Ed flops back over in his bed to face Al who sits there in the same exact position as he was before, glowing eyes trained onto Ed's own gold ones.

"Al," Ed calls to him in a whisper, and realizes it's probably the first time he's addressed his brother by name since everything happened. Before, it was like his entire mouth was filled up with cotton balls with the word guilt penciled across them that refused to allow him to speak. He's just going to have to learn to swallow them now.

Al gingerly stands, the metal plates of his armor scratching and scraping against each other as he does.

"Brother, what's wrong?" the concern and metallic echo warping his voice.

"Nothing." Ed shakes his head, trying to gather his thoughts. He had no plan what he was going to say to Al when he called him, all he knew was that if he didn't reach out to him across the endless void that had opened up in the middle of the room where the carpet should be, then there was a chance he wouldn't be able to ever reach him at all. "It's nothing, really—it's just—" and he extends his hand to where Al stands and beckons him over.

He's never been any good with words, it was always his actions that spoke more clearly for him anyway.

He's just going to have to practice, and now's as good of chance as any.

"Come here, Al."

Al steps over to the bed as gently as he can, which isn't very gently at all. His feet echo heavy and empty and blue against the wooden boards of the floor. When he makes it over to the bed, Ed motions for him to sit, and he does with slow and practiced movements. He lowers his heavy, steel body onto the edge of the foot of the bed, perched like a bird, ready to take flight at any moment.

For the past month it has been such an awkward song and dance between the two of them, when it's never been like that before. Always a polite curtsy here, a sidestep there, a pirouette when it's called for. Al always being excessively helpful and cheery in the presence of others, trying too hard to be strong for others when he can't begin to be strong for himself. He never stands in one place for too long, always steering clear of sharp and dangerous objects and spending way more time on little, mundane tasks than one should take on them because he's forgotten how to be gentle.

They haven't talked much since it happened; what is there to say? They've hardly breathed a word to each other in the month since everything went wrong, and even then the few words that they've shared have been ones that have been only about the present. No talk of Mom or Human Transmutation or what either of them must be going through right now, nothing that will make their minds travel back to that night in the basement. There's a rift between them now, one that just so recently opened up.

All of that is reflected in Al's posture now, too alert and much more attentive than he should be when he's only in the presence of his _brother.___Ed doesn't want his little brother to be afraid of hurting him when he was the one to hurt Al in the first place. He's the reason Al is having to endure all of this at all.

"I want you to be the first to know," Ed starts, taking Al's left gauntlet into his hand despite Al's slight protest, "that I'm going to take the Lieutenant Colonel up on his offer."

"But Brother—"

"Al, I'm going to become a State Alchemist like he told me to and I _am _going to get you your body back. You can't argue with me on this one, I've already made up my mind."

A soft keening noise comes from Al, one Ed's never heard and isn't sure what to make of, but there's a lot of new things to Al after he's trapped him in this metal birdcage.

He has to put this sentiment into words. It has to mean something, let it be a mantra or a song or a statement so he can carry it with him and repeat it when the skies go gray.

"Alphonse," Ed starts, clearing his throat and looking Al directly into the empty eyeholes of the helmet. He so rarely calls his brother by his full name, only when they're on the cusp of the next world.

"Whatever happens, whatever we find out there, I promise I _will _find a way to resort your original body and bring it back to you."

Ed looks up at his little brother, trying to find some reaction in his face, but there is nothing there but the unchanging metal.

Al tips his head down just slightly. "You know it's going to be dangerous. If you do this there's a chance you'll get hurt or you'll—you'll—" he pauses like he's taking a breath to steady himself, but there was no sound of inhale, no lungs to breathe it in.

"Brother, you don't have to do this. You don't have to throw yourself into something so dangerous for me."

"Al, it's my fault you don't have a body anymore. I've made up my mind already, I'm doing this."

Al nods, it's a hesitated nod, but a nod nonetheless.

"If you go, then I'm going with you. We can both get our State Alchemist certification."

"Don't be stupid, Al, you don't need to become a dog of the military as well. Just me having to associate with those bureaucratic bastards will be too much."

"No, we have to go together, we have to _do this together.___We only have each other left, so we have to watch each other's backs." He places a giant hand on Ed's left shoulder and Ed refused to flinch despite Al's too tight grasp. "Besides, I have to get you your arm and leg back anyway."

Is it possible to hear a sad smile in only a person's voice? Is it possible to see the heaviness that sits on unfeeling shoulders like tangible weights?

"You know you don't have to do that, Al. It's my fault in the first place, and I'm the reason that you're—" but Ed's cut off when a giant finger is brought to his lips in a shushing motion.

"Ed, don't. You gave up your arm for me._ Your arm.___Don't ever blame yourself for what happened, Ed. Never."

Ed laughs, a little tinkering laugh that doesn't display the whole of the love for his little brother that wells up within him at that moment.

"You don't have to, Al. I'll get automail and then I'll be fine. My limbs are nearly as important as your body."

"Brother," Al says, and it's the most confident Ed has heard him sound since he has lost everything and has had to begin to relearn it all. "I _am___going to do this. I'm going to restore your body like you'll restore mine. It's _equivalent exchange _ after all."

And that was one argument Edward could never argue against.

He wonders what he must have done in his past life to deserve a brother as good and caring as Al. Ed knows that that something must have taken place in a past life and not in this current one because he hasn't done anything worth in this life. He's only sinned and fallen and dragged Al all the way down to Hell with him, even when Al deserved anything _but___such treatment.

"Okay, then equivalent exchange. I'll restore you to your original body, you'll restore my arm and leg."

Al's helmet sits motionless and unchanging, but Ed can feel the smile hidden beneath.

Maybe, maybe if he manages to get this right, then he can begin to start to pay off his debts to the world. Perhaps if he doesn't fuck this one up, then he can start to clear his name.

Silence washes back over them, but it isn't the same silence as before. This one is peaceful and warm and settling. It's nothing like the sticky, scratchy silences of unsaid words and things that are known but never spoken of. This quiet feels like a quilt wrapped around his shoulders, soft and comfortable. It's the same warm feeling he gets inside of him when he's drank a mug of Mom's hot chocolate after a cold day walking home from school.

Al lingers on the edge of Ed's bed and Ed doesn't tell him to leave. Ed hardly takes up half the bed anyway, and he likes having his brother so close. It keeps it fresh in his mind what he needs to do.

If he's going to become a State Alchemist, he's going to need to get automail. He can't show up in Central with only two limbs and a wooden crutch. That's not going to cut it. Besides, who knows what dangers lie ahead of them if they take this road.

Ed lays back down, burying his face into his pillow and pulling the blanket up over his shoulder. He's almost asleep again when he hears Al shift beside him, feels the bed dip as he moves.

"Brother?" he whispers.

"What is it, Al?"

"I—" he stops, trying to sort himself out. This makes Ed turn his full attention back to him and he pushes himself back into a sitting position. Whatever this is, it's clearly bothering his little brother.

"I hope you know I don't blame you for what happened," he says, even quieter than the whisper.

At this, Ed says nothing.

"I mean," he fiddles with his gauntlets, clasping and unclasping the giant, leather fingers. He turns away from Ed's eyes and looks down at his lap. "You're the reason I'm still here, the only reason I'm not dead. I hope you know I could never blame you for that. Need I remind that _you gave up your arm for me. _That's not something I'll ever be able to repay you for._"_

Ed opens his mouth to argue about it, but closes it immediately. He doesn't care what Al says, he knows he's the fuck up, the reason they lost everything they didn't know they already had. Still, what Al says is true, he _did___give up his arm to bring Al back.

Instead of protesting, Ed just smiles.

"Of course I did. I love you Al, there was no way I was going to lose you."

A small noise escapes Al, and Ed wonders why he's waited so long to tell him those exact words.

He's never said it so openly, it has just been unspoken though every interaction of theirs, but he feels it's important to say now when the moment is so fragile and he isn't sure how much longer they'll have of this small moment together before they force the earth to tilt even farther on its axis.

Whatever canyon had opened up between them since the transmutation, whatever earthquake split the land between them and shifted them to separate tectonic plates has been sealed closed completely like it never existed in the first place.

Ed feels something on his head, and he looks up to see Al tousling his hair the way he always used to to Al when he wanted to express his love and words didn't cut it.

Love burns inside of Ed, somewhere deep in the cavity of his chest. It doesn't burn like a fire, hot and angry, but it burns in a pleasant way. This may not be the same love he felt towards his mother, love without reason or care, but this is still love all the same. Al _is___the most important person he has right now, and probably the most important person he'll ever have.

This is a love that comes with a currency. Debts they both feel they need to repay to the other, but although it isn't the same love Ed shared with his mother, that doesn't diminish its value. It's still worth the world to Ed.

Ed looks up at his brother and smiles, and although he cannot see it, Ed feels Al smile back at him.

"I love you too, Brother. Now, get some rest, you're going to have a busy day tomorrow."


	3. Eros

_**Eros**_

_Winter 1915_

Smoke billows around Edward, mucking up his vision. He can hardly see where he's going and his feet lead him blindly through the hallways like he is a dog being pulled on a leash. He isn't sure if it's muscle memory that takes him where he needs to go without him having to look, or perhaps it's the direct divine intervention of God.

There's the sound of something dripping echoing around him like water from a leaky pipe down in the basement, but instinct tells Ed there's something more sinister to it. The sound only grows louder as he walks through the halls.

His feet lead him down a set of stairs. He can feel every bit of dust and dirt that litters each step under both his feet. He knows where he's going now.

Some time ago he realized he was always ten when this sequence still played out. Still a child, still halfway innocent.

As he reaches the floor of the basement, the smoke clears as if he's splitting the sea into two and Ed inspects the scene before him. The room is dimly lit with the two kerosene lamps sitting in the corner on the desk where they always used to be. There are books piled high everywhere: on the shelves, on the floor, stacked in miscellaneous piles on every available surface. He looks down and sees that the soles of his feet scuff up the delicate lines of chalk inscribed onto the floor.

There's a child kneeling in the middle of the circle over a mangled shape vaguely resembling a human corpse.

At the sight, Ed's breath catches in his throat and the child turns around to face him.

For a moment they simply just sit there and stare at each other unmoving. The boy's eyes are as wide and as round as tea saucers before they turn into something more sinister. They narrow in a sneer and a scowl.

_Al._

He looks like something out of a delicate piece of art, painted all red and white and gold. There are flecks of blood on his face and in his hair, his arms are completely covered in it. He's kneeled over in it, his hands hovering over the pulsing organs spilling out of the monster's belly.

"_You,_" Al spits, his face scrunching up in utter disgust and the spite in his words hits Ed like a slap to the face.

"Al, I'm—" he starts, but the words don't come out how he wants them to. _What is he even supposed to say?_

"You did this! You did this to her! Look what you've done!" Al shrieks.

"Al, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to," he takes a step forward, closer to Al and closer the bloodied simulacrum of their mother. "Please understand that this isn't what I meant to happen. I was only trying to bring her back so we could be happy again."

"Liar! You're a monster and you turned her into one too!"

Ed takes the final steps between them, closing the gap until he too stands barefoot in the rain puddles of blood and outstretches a hand out to where Al kneels on the ground.

"Don't fucking touch me," Al hisses, venom on his breath.

Ed ignores him and instead brings a hand to Al's head to try and calm him down.

This is the part that Ed has always hated the most, the scene he has always dreaded like no other.

Instantly, the moment his hand breezes Al's golden hair, Ed jerks back with a yell. He grabs at his right hand, clutching it in horror in his left. Looking past his hand, Ed sees Al fall over onto Mom's body and writhe in pain, screaming and shaking.

It starts at Al's feet. They turn black and they start to dissolve, each little toe to turning dark and blowing away like ash on the wind. Slowly, as though Ed's watching a slowed down action scene in a film, Al begins to turn to nothingness.

Al screams like nothing Ed's ever heard before. It's the worst noise in the world.

"Al!" Ed cries out, falling to his knees in the puddle of red and trying to grab Al's arm as the black starts to move up his body at a rapid pace now, but the physical contact only makes him scream more.

Finally, when it reaches his head, it's like time itself slows once more and Al's eyes narrow in on Ed's.

"Take a good look at me, Edward," he chokes out between pained screams, "this is all because of you."

And with that, Al is no more.

"No…" Ed moans out, holding onto the bloodied clothes Al left behind, "no."

He stands, stumbling backward with the little white shirt still clutched to his chest.

"Ed?" a new voice questions behind him. "Ed what's going on?"

The creak of each step as she comes down is like the beat of a heart.

He hears her gasp when she finally makes it to the bottom and he wants her to go back upstairs or at least to turn away so she won't have to see the mess of organs and blood that litters the basement before her.

_"Ed, what is this?"_ and Ed turns around to see Winry standing there white as a ghost and shaking like a willow in the wind.

"Winry, it's not what you think."

Her eyes travel down to the bloodied, button-down shirt clasped tightly in his grasp.

"What did you do to Al?" she whispers, her fingers reaching out and gently tracing the edges of the fabric.

"Winry I didn't mean to," and he grabs for her hand only to feel the same thing he felt with Al.

She falls to her knees immediately, hands clawing at her own chest.

"What have you done to me?" she asks, turning to dust the same way Al did. "What is happening?"

Her eyes water and he watches as her tears soak the floor, washing away the lines of chalk marked there.

"Winry! I didn't mean to! Please don't—" he reaches out for her, but retracts his hand immediately remembering what his touch has already done to both her and Al now.

He's like King Midas from the Xerxean legend, but rather than his touch turning everything to gold, it turns everything to ash and dust.

"Is this what you did to Al?" she struggles out when there's hardly any of her left to ask.

"No— I didn't mean to—" but she's gone before he can finish. Gone like she was never there at all if it weren't for the clothes she left lying about serving as evidence and the darker patches of floor from where her tears soaked through.

Ed leans over, pulling his knees up to him, and screams.

_ b___**.oOo./**b

Edward wakes with a gasp, a breath caught in his throat. He struggles to choke it out with a quiet cough and pants as he tries to wear off the adrenaline of the nightmare.

Ed looks over at his younger brother lying in his bed against the window as he brushes away his bangs which are plastered to his sweaty forehead. It's a relief to see Al asleep in his own bed, it pulls him in like earth's gravity and ties his mismatched feet down to reality. _It's just a dream, _he tells himself as he watches his brother's chest rise and fall, _nothing more than a pesky, little dream._

But it _feels _like more. It feels like his new reality. He's suffered that same nightmare countless times; night after night after night since the transmutation he's watched it play out in his mind. Though the worst of it's over, order has been restored and the old normal is his reality once more, that doesn't stop the dream from coming. It's a violent as ever and it rocks around like a cyclone behind his eyelids.

Tonight, however, the dream is different than usual, worse somehow. He's seen the nightmare in all its variations, but this one doesn't happen as often and that makes it all the worse.

Some nights he dreams about Nina, Hughes, or other horrific deaths happening to the people he's grown to care so much for.

On most occasions it's almost always his mother's dead corpse, Al leaning over it and burning away at Ed's touch the way he did that night when they tried to bring Mom back. Rarely is anyone else there. It's happened before, sometimes Mustang will walk down into the basement and find him. Sometimes it's Teacher or Granny or Hawkeye or Sig, but it's been a while since it's been Winry who has fallen victim to his touch in that particular nightmare.

There's an urgency that comes with the dream, one that is persistent. It feels like a bomb inside his head ticking madly, slowly creeping closer and closer to zero when everything will explode in a rain of rage and fury, shame and sorrow. There's so much that presses inside his chest at the thought of it. The nightmare doesn't play on when he opens his eyes, it only turns into the shadowy monsters of the real world.

It's reassuring to see Al alive and well when the nightmare has passed. It used to always be comfort to him when he'd have this same dream, even when Al didn't wear the same face he had in the nightmare as his body was gone. His presence, no matter what his physical appearance might have been, was always reassuring.

Seeing him asleep now brings some more respite to Ed, however. Ed knows how to handle a nightmare, he's dealt with them for years on end. Despite the fact that, tonight's episode was one of the worst he's had in a while. Ed's taught himself how to wake up without screaming or crying out unconsciously while he sleeps. Al, on the other hand, does not have that kind of experience.

Six years without a body to sleep with means he has six years of nightmares to catch up on.

His little brother is a restless sleeper. There have been several times when Al's unconsciously scratched himself while wrestling around in his sheets while he slept. They would joke he would have to start sleeping with socks over his hands like newborns sometimes do to prevent them from scratching themselves.

Ed's glad to see he sleeps peacefully now. He hardly gets through a single night without waking up from some kind of nightmare. When he does wake up, afraid of the visions that linger in his head, Ed will always get up too and walk over to his bed to comfort him. Sometimes they leave him simply shaking, sometimes they make him cry and Ed will sit on the side of his bed and brush the pad of his thumb over his closed eyelids over and over again and whisper to him that it's all going to be okay the same way Mom used to until he falls asleep.

Al's always so embarrassed when it happens, Ed can always see the red tinge of a blush on his cheeks even in the darkness. Al will profusely apologize to Ed if he can manage to get the words out of his throat. They always sound so fragile that Ed thinks he could snap them in half if he tried.

"_I'm sorry for waking you, Ed," _he'll say, the words wobbly as he scrubs at his eyes. _"I'm fine. Really, I am. You can go back to sleep."_

And every time Ed will say back to him something along the lines of, _"it's okay, Al. You don't have to pretend to be okay for me. You don't always have to pretend to be so strong for everyone."_

None of that matters to Ed. He doesn't care if his brother wakes him in the middle of the night, Al's been there through more than enough of Ed's nightmares, always trying to comfort him the best way he could with his gargantuan metal body, so of course Ed is going to be there for his little brother when he has to suffer the same.

Ed pulls the heavy comforter off of him now and sits up in his bed. Through his pondering, his breath has steadied and his mind has cleared up somewhat. Al isn't even awake to tell Ed it will all be okay and still he's calmed Ed down.

Slinging his legs over the side of the bed, Ed doesn't even bother to slip on his slippers as he stands. It may be December, but the floor isn't nearly as cold as it has been in the past years. In fact, this is one of the warmest winters Resembool has ever seen.

Ed pulls their bedroom door open slowly, cringing as it creaks on its hinges, but luckily the sound elicits nothing but a soft snore from Al.

There's an irrational fear in Ed that tells him he needs to go check on Winry. He knows that she must be fine, that like Al she'll be sound asleep without a worry in the world, but that doesn't mean anything to him when the nightmare has convinced him she's gone, returned to the dust of the earth. He has to see her with his own to eyes just to know that it's only his own mind playing tricks on him.

He scuttles down the hallway as quietly as he can manage, always cursing the clunk of his automail foot when he steps on his left leg. The upstairs hallway is short and the plush rug that runs down the hall helps mask his footsteps just slightly.

Winry's door slide open easily, no groan or creak of the hinges, probably taking it upon herself to grease her own bedroom doo. Ed smiles at the mental image of her getting so annoyed with the creak that she took her precious automail crafting tools and got down and oiled them herself.

Ed steps just far enough into her bedroom to see her lying on her bed. Moonlight floods in from the giant window on the front wall and glints off the many metal tools and scraps that sit on her desk, making them glitter like pieces of lost treasure. Something about the scene reminds Ed of an underwater mermaid trove that he and Al used to read about in the fairytale book their mother gifted them. Everything seems to be different shades of blue and navy and black here in the darkness with the exception of the glimmering tools and Winry herself.

If the bedroom is a hidden mermaid treasure trove, then Winry is the enchantress mermaid who guards it. Her blonde hair is spread across her pillow and curls around her face, framing it like a golden halo. Her chest rises and falls with the deep breaths of sleep, and Ed smiles to himself as he stands there watching her. She's beautiful sleeping here, not angry or sad or really feeling any emotion at all, rather she's the personification of peace itself.

There's a small smudge of grease under her left eye, no doubt the result of all the hard work she's been pouring into creating two new arms for one of her clients in Rush Valley. She's always been so passionate about her work. Ed hopes her clients are aware of the hours of love and perfection she dedicates to crafting each and every piece for them.

Her lips are parted and she snores ever so slightly, and Ed knows it isn't a habit of hers that he would have ever noticed if the house hadn't been as quiet as it is now. She's sleeping soundly, breathing deeply. She's perfectly alive and well and that's all Ed needs to know to quell the anxiety swimming through the currents of his stomach.

_She's here, she's fine, _he tells himself again and again and again until the screaming in his head subdues to the background.

Ed pulls the door close behind him as he leaves and makes his way back the room he shares with Al. He sits down on top of the covers of his bed and places his forehead in his palms and lets out an annoyed sigh. He was really planning to get some decent sleep tonight, but now that's completely out of the question. He's just going to have to wait it out until morning, he's not getting any rest tonight.

That's the problem with nightmares. It doesn't matter how big or small they are, or how nonsensical Ed knows them to be, when Ed has one he's certain he won't be able to sleep for the rest of the night, leaving him confined to bed and letting his mind run rampant.

Ed bounds down the stairs one at a time, internally cursing at himself every time he steps down on his left foot and the wooden stair lets out a screeching moan. Curse this heavy automail leg.

Whoever was the last to bed left the light in the kitchen on and Ed's grateful. It saves him from blindly groping the walls in search of a light switch while attempting not to run into anything.

Tea's never been a favorite of Ed's, but he'll drink at times like this, times when he knows he's in for a night of no sleep.

Ed goes through the motions of setting up the kettle before he busies himself with getting out a mug. He must pull open every single cabinet searching for one before he realizes all the mugs are sitting dirty in the sink and he's just going to have to wash one for himself if he wants any tea. Cold water splashes him directly in the face as he turns the faucet on and the water shoots off the slick curve of a spoon sitting in the sink. Ed grumbles to himself as he wipes his face with the tea towel looped over the handle of the stove.

Tonight is really not his night.

Pushing up his sleeves, Ed begins to wash all the dirty dishes in the sink knowing he has time to spare and nothing to do. Maybe he'll sit down on the on the couch and read one of the books from the shelves, though he doubts Granny keeps anything but medical volumes and automail textbooks stored on them.

Ed isn't expecting it when the kettle starts to steep, its whistle like a scream. The sound wouldn't normally scare him, but he's already jumpy from earlier, the house is as silent as the moon and it's just loud enough to startle him into dropping the freshly washed mug he holds which falls into the ground and breaks into a million white pieces. Without hesitation, Ed crouches to the ground right where he is and brings his palms together in a clap and slams them to the ground where the mug first collided. He blinks several times when nothing happens, before coming out of his daze and shaking his head.

Of course.

His alchemy is gone.

When he pulls his hands away he feels a stinging in his right palm. Ed turns both his hands over and watches as bright red drops fall onto the shattered remains of the mug like paint on an artist's canvas.

He simply stares as the blood fall to the floor for a good minute without blinking or breathing. What was he even thinking trying to fix the mug himself? His alchemy has been gone for six months now, when is he going to learn he's going to have the sweep up the broken pieces and get rid of them for good? He can't fix every little thing he breaks no matter how many times he tries.

He's lived and learned that lesson enough times that he should know that by now.

Something unpleasant writhes in Ed's stomach as he inspects the remains of ceramic and blood sitting in front of him. It's humiliation served with a helping of wounded pride on the side. Seeing it there makes him feel worthless, like he's nothing.

He's spent so long wielding such great power only to have it revoked. He doesn't regret the decision he made, never will he regret it in a million years, but something about it still hurts. There's an overwhelming powerlessness that comes with realizing his biggest defining feature to everyone he met, the thing that put him a cut above the rest, the thing he was constantly praised for is all gone now. His alchemy is a thing of the past.

"Ed?" a voice asks behind him, and Ed winces when he hears her.

For a moment he thinks this must be another dream, this moment so perfectly mirroring the scene from before when Winry found him in the basement leaning over where Al used to kneel.

He isn't even sure how she manages to sneak up on him without his noticing.

Ed takes a steadying breath, before turning around and standing, clutching his bleeding arm behind his back so she won't see.

"What are you doing up?" It comes out more spiteful and defensive than he means for it to and he recoils at the sound of his own voice, but Ed doesn't really want to deal with anyone right now. Not now after his pathetic spectacle of trying to alchemize the mug back together and making a fool of himself.

Winry raises an eyebrow at him. "I'm up because _you're _up. You were making enough ruckus down here to wake the dead. It's a good thing Granny and Al are heavy sleepers. What are you doing up anyway?"

Ed doesn't point out that she too is normally a heavy sleeper, that not even heaven or hell could wake her on most occasions, but he chooses to just shrug in response instead.

Winry narrows her eyes at him, but doesn't say anything. Her blue eyes search his face for an explanation, but Ed's certain she must know already. It's plenty obvious why he's up and not trying to fall back asleep.

When her eyes are done searching his face, Winry looks beyond where Ed's standing and he knows when she has spotted the broken pieces of ceramic on the floor because she lets out a small gasp.

"Did you break one of the mugs?" she questions before her eyes narrow even further and her eyebrows knit together in confusion. "And is that blood?"

Turning back, Ed looks down at the mug and frowns.

"I guess it is. I cut my hand on one of the pieces so—"

"Let me see."

"What—"

"Let me see your hand."

He pulls both hands out from behind him and turns them palm up in front of her. She takes them both in her hands and rubs her thumb over the gash running from the base of his thumb midway across his palm on his right hand. The blood still pours from it readily and smears across her fingers as she inspects it without any regard.

"It doesn't look like there's any shards in your hand, but we need to wash and bandage it anyway," she says matter-of-factly, always business when it comes to treating an injury. He's always admired that about her but now it makes him feel squeamish, like he's a faceless project of hers, a piece of automail that requires fixing.

"Winry, it's not a big deal, just go back to bed and let me deal with it on my own."

She presses her lips together in a line and looks at him with a gaze he can't quite get a read on.

Finally, when Ed feels he can't take that unreadable look anymore, he breaks the tension between them again. "Seriously, Win, I know how to bandage a wound, I've done it enough times to myself anyway that I'm an expert." He laughs awkwardly, and gives her a smile that makes his insides feel like their false replicas of actual organs.

She frowns at that and only then does Ed realize that that little remark was probably in bad taste. God he's a fucking idiot. Of course Winry doesn't want to hear about how many injuries he had to wrap himself while working for the military.

At this she says nothing though. Rather, she just tugs his hand gently alongside her as she leads them to the bathroom and he follows.

She runs the tap, letting the water warm up for a moment before submerging Ed's hand in the downpour and begins running her hands over his as she cleans the wound. When she deems her work satisfactory she turns away and Ed watches as she gets out the disinfectant and begins to dab the cut in it. It burns, but he's so used to the sensation that he doesn't squirm under its fiery tickle.

His throat feels full of the same cotton material that she uses to bandage back up his hand. He wants to apologize for waking her, or at least say something to her that will make her stop giving his that look. Her eyes are as clear as a crystal ball and Ed can read his entire fortune in them.

They say that she pities him in a sense. He's finally whole, he's finally safe and where he should be, but he's whole in the way the ceramic mug would be if he had had Al alchemize it back together for him: slightly misshapen with pieces missing from where they flew across the kitchen under counters and into corners never to be found. The mug will be functional, usable, but it won't ever be the same.

All this time and he's still trying to put together the pieces of himself he shattered over five years ago the night he first learned the Truth.

When she finishes and turns off the tap, they both stand there looking everywhere but at each other. If only Ed could bring his gaze back to her without feeling so fucking pitiful.

"Winry," he murmurs, voice low and his gaze still turned onto his hands. "I'm sorry. For waking you I mean."

Goosebumps crawl up his skin and he feels her fingers land one by one on his upper arm. "It's no problem."

"You should probably go back to bed now," Ed suggests. Maybe he'll be able to bear it better if he's alone, if she'll let him mope in peace. He doesn't want her standing over him and watching him with her rueful eyes as he bends over and picks up the pieces of the shattered coffee mug one by one.

"_You're_ not going back to bed though," she notes.

She doesn't say it like a question, rather she states it casually like she doesn't even have to question whether he's going to or not. She's put up with Ed for long enough to know he's planning to stay up until he sees the sun and tell Al when he wakes up that he simply got up early so he won't be worried. Why should she have to question it? He knows she knows every single one of his little imperfections.

"I'll stay up with you, it's not worth it going back to bed now," she adds when Ed doesn't say anything more, causing him to look at her with wide eyes.

"You don't have to do that."

"Sure I do." She gives him a sympathetic smile. "Besides, I know you would do the same for me."

He nods. It isn't a sentiment worth arguing about because he knows what she says is true.

"How about we go sit outside on the porch," she starts to suggest when things grown quiet between them again. "I figured it would be nice to get some fresh air since it isn't too cold out there. It's better than being cooped up in the house anyway. Oh and I'll make us some hot chocolate too!"

Ed smiles, "sure, Win."

b**.oOo./**b

The breeze outside is rather chilly, but not nearly as cold as December usually is. Luckily Ed won't have to worry about Granny making a fuss this year and forcing him to cover her flowers with the set of spare sheets when the frost comes through, but there's something about the typical Resembool winters that he misses.

He takes a seat at the edge of the porch, letting his legs stretch out down the two wooden steps in front of where he sits. The stars up ahead call his attention, and he gazes up at them, tracing their patterns and stories with his eyes. Who knows how many times he's starred up at this same sky with these same stars; a million different circumstances and situations, but the stars are always left unchanged.

Al knows the constellations better than he does. There was a while where he spent a majority of his evening hours studying the galaxies and the myths that came along with the pictures drawn by the heavens, always searching for something to do when sleep escaped his grasp like a child reaching out for a handful of stardust.

In the silence of the porch the visions of dreams flood back into Ed's mind. He's never going to get the mental picture of Al falling away to nothingness, their fingers just inches apart, out of his head. At least with Winry's company he's distracted from the dream and the horrifying deaths his mind conjures up and forces him to watch while he sleeps.

The front door creaks a moment later and Winry steps out with a blanket heaved over her shoulder and a tray with two steaming mugs. A slice of honey light pours out from the open door where she stands and floods across the weathered, wooden beams of the porch. She looks radiant standing there, and Ed feels high rush of heat race up to his cheeks before quickly turning away to hide his embarrassment.

"I made hot chocolate," she says as she sits down beside him and drapes the blanket across both their shoulders. "Don't worry, I made yours with water inside of milk, which may I just add is totally nasty."

"Nasty? The only nasty thing is the fact that you make yours with milk. That has to be a crime or something, it's criminal you would ruin a perfectly good cup of hot chocolate with that disgusting cow juice."

Winry rolls her eyes and takes a sip of the beverage, not adding anything to the argument.

They sit there in perfect harmony for a while, listening to the tinkle of the windchime blowing in the early morning breeze and drinking from their mugs. Ed can feel her arm pressed up against his as they huddle together in the blanket to protect themselves from the slight cold. He can image the little goosebumps that have cropped up against her legs and he can see the reflection of the stars in her eyes.

Something jumps around in his heart and Ed tried to push it down but fails.

"So," Winry starts, and Ed hopes she didn't notice him staring. "Are you going to tell me why you're up at this ungodly hour?" She keeps her eyes trained on the sky, but Ed knows she's analyzing every move he makes from her periphery.

He wonders why she's making a spectacle of asking when he knows that she knows exactly why, but he can't just pretend he didn't hear the question when he very obviously did.

"It was nothing," he mumbles, "it was stupid anyway."

She purses her lips and turns to him, "it's okay, Ed," she says with a soft smile, "you don't have to tell me if you don't feel like talking about it.

"But sometimes, well," she pauses, mauling over her words, "sometimes it helps to talk about these kinds of things. It might make you feel better to actually discuss it and get it out of your system."

Ed bites his lip, not hard enough to draw blood, but hard enough to feel the pain of it.

He doesn't want to talk about this. He doesn't want to feel helpless in front of her. He doesn't want to flounder around her like a fish out of water, gasping and struggling in the most pathetic way possible. Most of all, he doesn't want to put the weight of it on her shoulders. Ed doesn't want her to feel as if she has to help him carry his torch when it's his cross to bear alone. If he has to suffer this through then so be it, but he won't force this upon another living soul if he can help it. He's already done so much damage to her life, dragged her into so much shit she didn't need to see. It would be unfair to burden her even more than he already has.

It isn't until he feels a light squeeze that he realizes she's interlaced her fingers into his while he was thinking. Ed bites back something foreign at the feeling of it. He can feel the way her hands are calloused, strong and capable from all the years she has spent working on her automail. Her thumb brushes back and forth in a soothing motion over and over again over the white bandage he has wrapped around his hand, the one _she _wrapped around his hand.

It seems, without Ed even realizing it, he's still letting Winry pick of all of the broken pieces of him. She didn't hesitate to pull him out of his despondency and bandage him up when she found him kneeling on the kitchen floor in a puddle of blood and broken pieces. She never stopped trying to patch him up, even now when his days of endless wandering are behind him.

"It was—" and the words seem to spill out of him like he is speaking on autopilot. Sirens blare hot and flashing in his mind, but he can't stop the words now that he's opened his mouth and begun to speak. "It was a nightmare, that's all."

He ducks his head in shame and embarrassment, but the look in her eyes doesn't read as pity. Rather, they tell him to go on, that she's hanging onto every word he speaks.

"I just always thought that when Al got his body back and we returned home that all of this would be over. Not just that the military stuff or the leads or whatever else, but also all the bad feelings and memories that came with what we did. I thought the nightmares would be a thing of the past, that we wouldn't hurt any more, but look at me," he lets out a sharp bark of laughter and lets go of her hand to hold both of them up in front of him. "I couldn't even put a stupid mug back together without hurting myself."

"Ed…"

"I returned home a pitiful copy of the person I once was. I don't have my alchemy anymore, I still have automail. Hell— take one look at Al and you can just see the way we came back still somehow broken." Ed pauses and takes a heavy breath. "I just always believed that we would have some kind of fairytale ending when we came home— that we wouldn't have to go through any of this anymore— but it seems we can't escape our pain even though we've achieved our goal."

Ed looks up at her face, but he can't tell what she's thinking. Her eyes are unusually blank when they're always so expressive of _something._

"Sorry," Ed adds when she says nothing. "I shouldn't have put that all on you, it was unfair of me to expect you too—"

"Ed," she interrupts, but he goes on with his mumbling apologies until she puts a hand on his cheek and he freezes instantly at her touch. "It's okay, Ed. It's alright to hurt. You don't always have to be okay."

"I'm just frustrated with myself." Ed balls up his fists in his lap. "It's been six months, but it still feels like there's this hurt that lingers inside of me."

She sighs and Ed squirms under her touch.

"You don't say the same thing when Al wakes up from a nightmare," Winry points out. "When he gets one you take it in stride and do everything you can to help him, I know you do, I hear you in there sometimes. You shouldn't push this double standard onto yourself, you shouldn't force yourself to pretend to be okay when _you_ have a nightmare."

"Well that's because Al doesn't know what it's like to go through this in the first place." Ed doesn't add that Al doesn't deserve to know it either, he's already done his time and served his sentence with living out the even worse nightmare of no sleep for himself. It doesn't seem that Truth listens to that kind of logic though and instead Al has six years of trauma to process and catch up on. Honestly that makes Ed feel even worse about the whole of it.

He lets out a breath, shaky and small and he looks up to the stars. He continues to feel her hand stroke the back of his.

"I still dream about my parents at night."

This snaps his attention back to her. In all the years Ed's known Winry, he's hardly ever heard her speak about her parents since their passing, let alone speak about the fact that she still dreamed about them. He had no idea.

She carries on, "I have dreams where they die over and over and over again. Dreams where a faceless man kills them repeatedly in the most gruesome ways possible as I stand there helpless and watch.

"In the beginning I was so afraid," there's slight tremble to her hand but she doesn't stop. "It's been a decade since they died but the dream never stops."

"Winry…"

She clears her throat and turns his face to hers so their eyes meet, knowing she has his full attention now. "What I'm trying to say, Ed, is that it doesn't always go away. It would take a small infinity to make you forget everything you've seen, for you to stopped being plagued by it, and that's okay. No one except for you is putting a pressure on you to not feel it anymore. You don't have to force yourself to be okay now. That isn't how being okay works. It takes time."

Ed breathes deep and he can feel the creature locked up in his heart trying to break free. There's something like realization or longing running through his veins right now, something that makes him realize Winry's the best woman in the world, though he's pretty sure he's known that for a while now.

"I'm sorry, about your nightmares about your parents."

She shakes her head, "don't apologize, Ed. There's nothing for you to be sorry for anyway. All I want is for you to listen to me and understand what I'm trying to say to you."

"I do."

"Good," she smiles.

Ed feels a pressure against his neck and looks to see Winry has pivoted her body towards him and laid her head on his shoulder. Her eyes are shut in a way that reminds him of the sleeping princess from one of the storybooks Mom used to read him and Al when they were still too little to know how to read themselves.

There's something wriggling in his heart and pressing against the walls of its four chambers. It's like seed starting to sprout, its stem determined to break the earth and rise above to the surface to grow. It's a feeling that comes when Ed looks down at Winry and thinks about all the things she's just said to him, a seedling ready to bloom.

If he lets the feeling persist long enough then maybe its vines will grow to replace his veins, its fruit to take his brain. He wouldn't mind it, something about this feeling is warm and good and oddly familiar in a sense.

"You're not going to fall asleep on me?" he laughs, and uses his opposite arms to brush her bangs out of her face.

"Maybe," Winry teases with her eyes still shut. "Though you don't make a very comfortable pillow."

He smirks. If she falls asleep here and gets drool on his t-shirt sleeve, well, he'll definitely tease her about it in the morning, but he'll let it slide for the time being.

"Winry?"

"Hmmm?"

"Thank you. For everything."

"You don't have to think me, Ed, just promise you'll come talk to us more often."

He hums in response, but it must not portray the conviction she is looking for when she shoots up into a sitting position wide awake in response.

"You really should talk to us more, Ed. I mean it."

"I don't know," he sighs, "I mean I get what you're saying, but I don't want to wake you over something so trivial."

"You know I would never be mad at you for waking me, right? And I know the same goes for Al too. You can always talk to me, or if you feel more compelled to talk to Al, then talk to him. I know he would be more than okay with being awoken because if it's for you then he would do anything without question. We're here for you, Ed. We're always going to be here by your side, so don't be afraid to lean on us when you need to."

He nods, too afraid to speak for there's a feeling caught in his throat.

"Okay," he manages to whisper when he realizes she's waiting for a response. "I will."

She nods and goes back to her position of placing her head on his shoulder and curls up against him.

Ed turns and looks down at her and something in his head scream at him.

He loves her, he just really fucking loves his girl pressed up against him. He knows he's always loved her deep down in some sense of the word, but the love he feels now is new, like a reignited spark. It isn't the same familial love her feels for Al or for Mom, this love is so much different, but it isn't something he quite has a word for yet. It's not as subtle as the other kinds of love he knows. It's more passionate and dances quickly around his heart like a leaping fire spinning in an endless pirouette. He'll have to dedicate more thought to classifying this, but for now he revels in its warmth.

He doesn't deserve her kindness, her compassion, but he's given it anyway. Maybe that's what compassion _is, _for her to give him her love without him ever being good enough to deserve to hold it.

He's never met anyone as strong hearted and beautiful as Winry Rockbell.

Here she is, giving so much for him when he's never given back his fair share to her. He'll have to do something about rectifying that bit of equivalency, he's got a new theory on Equivalent Exchange anyway, one he's been discussing with Al about taking ten and giving back eleven. He'll just have to begin putting his theory to practice starting with Winry.

There are still pieces of himself that Ed needs to work out before he can fully commit to loving her. He doesn't want to come to her broken or too heavily reliant on her to fix him, but this gives him a new will and focus. For now, he's going to begin with cleaning up the shattered pieces of the mug in the house, accepting that it's broken for good, and moving on.

Or maybe he can just have Al fix them when he wakes.

Ed leans over and kisses Winry on the head when he hears a light snore and Ed turns his eyes to the rising sun.


End file.
